Every once in a while I see someone on here insist that they only eat dead matter and resort to eating fruit only if there is an absence of it and nothing else for them to eat. There is plenty of wood and other things for them to eat here. They gravitate to the strawberries.
by HealthWealthFoodie
20 Comments
They are just sniffing it. Nothing to worry about
I will fight anyone till the day I die that says they don’t eat living plants. I’ve had countless plants killed by pill bugs.
I had the same problem. Straw mulch helped a lot.
those appear to be pill bugs eating strawberries
I’m an organic gardener/ farmer. Pill bugs are basically my only pest. Them and aphids on some crops. Diatomaceous earth works great though at least on the pill bugs.
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I’ve noticed that something else has to take a bite of the strawberry first – a slug, a bird – and then it’s like blood in the water. The pill bugs move in like the slow-moving land-sharks they are.
I’ve always called them potato bugs! I’ve never heard pill bug before. Regional name differences are some of my favourite things!
Huh, wild. I know different locations have different species, I wonder if that’s the difference? We’ve got a lot of pillbugs in my area but I’ve never seen them eat anything living like that.
Sometimes the reddit “experts” are 100% wrong and that is the case with pillbugs. “Oh they only eat organic matter as a first resort”
No, they don’t have rules, just an appetite. The only thing that really stopped them was summer heat. But then the earwigs came. I used sluggo plus and that worked better than anything else.
Use Diatomaceous earth.
I’m not saying they don’t, but some bugs are opportunistic. If the strawberry started to rot, from being on the soil, it opens it up to many more insects.
They are just inspecting the fruit
I have marigold plant in my 8 strawberry plant it help keep bug away.
Fuckers eat my bean and cucumber seedlings too
I’ve had pill bigs cut down seedlings before they got their true leaves out, but never fresh fruit or adult plants. Despite having a lot of them. I suspect the reason is that my garden always has an abundance of rotting organic matter for them to feast on.
Throw down a bunch of mulch and see if the problem resolves. It’s good advice anyway, as you generally want to add lots of organics back into the soil.
They decimate my bean sprouts every year unless I am 100% vigilant with the diamataceous earth.
I have had issues with pill bugs decimating my strawberries in the past. Have a fantastic fix to share: use those little mesh bags (that you might find at weddings with small amounts of candies in them), put them on the green strawberries and tug the drawstring tight. The pill bugs can’t get through.
Drawbacks: they require you to put a little bag on each berry and it’s kind of a pain in the ass. But it works!
Nice of them to all gang up on one strawberry instead of taking a bite out of each one, I guess? I had a polite squirrel like that, it would just sit in my apple tree and eat an entire apple and then leave.
Opportunists
I have started killing pill bugs. I have seen them eating my plants this year.